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Clinton Email Scandal: Hillary Could Face A 10-Year Prison Stint If Her Server Was Hacked

Hillary Clinton and her supporters have steadfastly maintained that her private email server posed no threat to U.S. security. But that’s not true, as the recent inspector general’s report and comments from a former counterintelligence official show.

It’s shocking that someone could lie so prolifically about something, yet pay no consequences for it. But that perfectly describes Clinton’s situation.

Question: “Were you ever … specifically briefed on the security implications of using … your own email server and using your personal address to email with the president?”

Clinton: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well aware of the classification requirement and did not send classified material.”

This is plainly a lie, since the initial investigation by Charles McCullough, the intelligence agencies’ inspector general, found at least 1,000 classified documents on Clinton’s server, with some two dozen of those classified as either Top Secret or SAP. For those who don’t know, SAP is even higher than Top Secret, and involves the most sensitive secrets the nation has.

We’ve gone through all the evidence before, and will again before this saga is through. But one aspect has been curiously left unexplored: the likelihood that Hillary’s email was hacked by foreign intelligence, leading to a possible major breach of U.S. security.

The Clinton camp aggressively disputes this. As longtime Clinton aide Lanny Davis put it, “There is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked … All the dire and dark warnings from partisan Republicans about the secretary of state risking the nation’s security by using a private server are, in fact, all speculation — based on no facts whatsoever.”

That’s a classic Clintonian response –smear the opposition, then issue a nondenial denial. Notice that Davis isn’t saying it didn’t happen, just that there’s no evidence — except for the fact that the Romanian hacker called “Guccifer” has already pleaded guilty to hacking Hillary’s server.

Still, the FBI hasn’t released the findings of its own investigation yet, so we don’t yet know how extensive the hacking and penetration of Hillary’s server by foreign intelligence was. But John R. Schindler, a former National Security Agency analyst writing at The Oberserver, got an interesting quote from someone he described as a senior U.S. counterintelligence official who is “privy to some of he FBI’s findings.”

If what the source says is true, Clinton is in big trouble.

“We know (her email server) was hacked numerous times; it’s that simple,” the official said. “If I were Vladimir Putin, I’d fire the head of the SVR (Russia’s foreign intelligence service) if he didn’t get a good look at Hillary’s emails when they were sitting in plain sight online.”

What’s funny is that this is the week that Hillary is using to launch herself as the clear superior to Donald Trump when it comes to … wait for it … national security.

What’s not so funny is what letting Hillary’s emails be vacuumed up by a potential enemy might mean. Congress is taking the possible breach of security seriously. “Did it affect their actions as it related to, for example, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea or Eastern Ukraine?” asked Sen. Ron Johnson last weekend. “What about the negotiations with Iran? What about Assad?”

Johnson’s are not mere rhetorical questions, but further avenues for investigation. And yes, contrary to some Democrats’ spin, letting U.S. secrets get into the hands of foreign powers is an indictable offense.

Under the Espionage Act it is a felony for a federal official to “knowingly remove classified material without the authority to do so and with the intention of keeping that material at an unauthorized location.” That alone can lead to a one-year prison sentence. If the classified material is then made available to an “unauthorized person,” it can lead to 10 years in prison — 15 if the information identifies a U.S. covert agent.